Different types of computing

[anoni]

Ok, so pretty much I've come to discover something.

  What is a computer? Is it the thing that process all our games and programs and such? Well, as we all know the computer is made up of binary digits of 0 and 1 but what do they represent? The binary digits simply represent a 1 being "electric current" and 0 being no electric current, they are created using integrated circuits and transistors. But namely the idea of the computer is pretty much something that changes its state due to an event, it's just a bunch of electric currents that represent something. So the question is, why do you need electricity for a computer? You can actually make a computer out of almost anything! As demonstrated by this xkcd comic.


  So well, it turns out that they have made some pretty wonderful concepts of computing to actually increase the standard computational power and to achieve problems that haven't been able to be achieved with our style of computers.

One example is...

DNA COMPUTING
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_computing
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/dna-computer.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancake_sorting
  You won't believe this, but it turns out that DNA itself can be used for computers! By actually using a bacteria's DNA they have been able to solve problems that have been previously taken too long to solve on current computers. That's right, not only are these DNA computers smaller than microprocessors but they also have the potential to be much faster than microprocessors. They do this through a process known as parallel computing, which is when many computers work together to solve the same problem, which currently is quite hard to do with current technology (though possible). So by using bacteria's DNA to actually assist other DNA to help compute mathematical problems, we are able to theoretically increase processing power significantly! So one day your computers will actually be living organisms!

But, as said in the wiki article, DNA computers help, but there not exactly the as beneficial as...

QUANTUM COMPUTERS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computer
http://www.howstuffworks.com/quantum-computer.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/may/06/quantum-computing-physics-jeff-forshaw
Electricity is a bunch of charges moving from one pace to another, we use doped semi-conductors like silicon to move the electricity around, but what if we just use... atoms? Yep, that's right, quantum computing is actually using atoms and quantum molecules to do computational equations! Not only will this drastically reduce the size of microprocessors by a degree of almost unimaginable quantity, this has another subtle effect. As quantum mechanics states that an object can be in two or more different states at the same time, this means that you could have two different computational tasks at the same time using the same computer. So that's very big news, but why is that big news? What's the difference between that and parallel computing? Well, imagine parallel computing as moving your left hand down and your right hand up, now imagine quantum computing as moving your left hand down and up at the same time. So pretty much, it's more efficient, but really complex and as all those articles state, nothing really conventional has been built yet. But if... or should I say... when it does, computer processing will be beyond the limits of what we could have ever imagined... maybe we could finally play Battlefield 3 on full ultra. (To give you an idea of how powerful a quantum computer would be. By using 250 qubits (250 atoms) you could get much, much, MUCH more than a quadrillion times more computational power than all the computers in the world put together (Roughly 2.26 x 10^74 bytes, to build a classical computer of that storage would require about as atoms that exist in the observable universe))

  The world record for Quantum computing has been 12 qubits, about half a kilabyte worth of data, but hey that's something
  Do any of you guys know about any awesome types of computers? I'd love to know!
Also I'm kind of etchy on the stuff, so if I made a mistake don't hesitate to point it out

[MrRazot]

Is it not scary to think how big a jump computing will take should the quantum computer go into mass production?
Today's top of the range computer will be considered slow.
How realistic will games be?
Can't wait

[anoni]

It will be amazing, but I've been doing a lot of thinking about quantum computing today and I figured out some things and some ideas (this might be wrong as it's only my OWN thinking)

In classical computers things are made of bits and in quantum computers they are made of qubits

One bit, at any one time, can be either
0 OR 1
One qubit, at any one time, can be
0 AND 1
so one qubit, is twice as much as a bit.

Two bits, at any one time, can be either
00 OR 01 OR 10 OR 11
why two qubits can be
00 AND 01 AND 10 AND 11
so that's 4 times as much potential processing data.

so when you have 250 qubits, you have a lot of different combinations, why a qubit can be all possibly combinations at once, a bit can only be one combination at one time.

  If that is true, then there is some limitations.

  If you had 2 qubits you could represent all these number (in decimal) at the same time
0, 1, 2 and 3
  but if you wanted to represent two 3's then you'd need 4 qubits, and if you wanted to represent a "4" you would need another qubit. So although computational power is definitely increased, it still has limitations and chances are that even if we had a 250 qubit quantum computer that has the potential of every computer in the entire universe, we might not actually be able to feasibly GRASP that potential.
 

[George]

I'm so glad to live in the future. (Unlike poor Rod Serling)

[MrRazot]

it's exponetial man @_@

[anoni]

Indeed it is

To find out the computation power of n qubits in terms of bits. the formula is
2^n (n being number of qubits)

so you had 10 qubits, that's the same as 2^10 bits.

250 qbuits is the same as 2^250

[MrRazot]

It would be funny if someone accidentally copied and pasted their physical computer
I know it's not possible, but it would be funny

[anoni]

There are two other types of computing that I can get into

Unfortunately, these types of computers aren't as unbelievably fascinating as DNA computers and they are not as unbelievably amazing as Quantum computers, but they do have the advantage of actually coming into existence RATHER SOON. That's right, these next two types of computers are going to be the first ones to replace electric computers!

Optical Computers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_computing
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090702080119.htm
http://www.economist.com/node/16103910
Out of all the forms of computing on this list, this is probably going to be the first one to replace Electrical computing. Electricity can go very fast, it can flash before our very eyes and travel amazing distances in the time it takes for us to blink, but computer scientists just look at electricity in computers and say "meh, that's too slow". So they turn to the FASTEST thing in the world, that's right, light. Replacing electric current with light waves and photo-transistors allows for a much faster computer, more computations can be made in one second, so much so that it takes a nano-second to travel around 30cm, that's impressive when you realize that a chip is often less than 5mm large. The unbelievable speed of light could improve computer performance to a very large degree, why we are already in production of photo-electric circuts, we still have some time to go. But in the near future your computers will no longer run on electricity, but they will run on lasers... how freaking badass is that?

Chemical Computing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_computer
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2011/04/chemical-computers-solve-shape.html
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/news/2007/january/24010701.asp
So, ok, this still will take a while, but imagine a computer that is cheaper, better and more easily made than the computers you have now? Well, what if I were to tell you that that computer could exist BUT it was also just a big glob of goo? Yep, that's right, running a cheaper and better desktop using nothing but chemicals which, to us, look like a big glob of goo! So what advantages does this big glob of goo have to normal computing? Well first of all it's easier to make, why a single air particle could destroy a microprocessor for current computing, a big glob of goo is a... big glob of goo and it's quite hard to destroy a big glob of goo! Another advantage is a bit more complex, but the wiki explains it well. Imagine that in normal silicon chips each circuit is a road and the electricity are cars. You can only have one car on a road at a time and the roads intersect so you have cars waiting for other cars to go past and such, this is obviously inefficient. A chemical computer works more like waves, where data moves outwards in every possible direction at a time, allowing a lot of computation input to be accessed and processed at the same time! For some people this might seem familiar, but that's because this is very similar to how the BRAIN works and yes, that means we will be making computers out of artificial brains. Is that not awesome!?

[MrRazot]

Roll on the age of Artificial Intelligence

[anoni]

Indeed sir!
speaking of artificial intelligence...
...looks like we've got one turning against it's master

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57432462-37/siri-says-nokia-lumia-900-the-best-smartphone-ever/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

[MrRazot]

Rofl
 
Let's hope apple don't start a company called skynet

[anoni]

There's already a satelite called skynet

[MrRazot]

Noes